20 Dec, 2024

Dear Parents,

'Tis the season! I like this time of the year. A feeling of wiping clean the slate and anticipating new beginnings. This week’s newsletter is written by Ananya but I have a sharing from our interaction with a visitor.

Monday

This week was our no sessions week. This week was also Poorva’s welcome week after the Jeevan vidya course. Unfortunately, due to a cough she had lost her voice, so we were all playing Dumb charades with her. We also had two guests from the United states. One of them was from a sudbury school (a school like LC) in New Jersey. Anyways, like all of you must be knowing, this was our last week of LC before the Christmas vacation. But that is not why we don’t have sessions. The fun fair is why we don’t have sessions. By now all the committees had done most of their work. The count of no. of people coming was asked by the food and budgeting committee. They had also finalised on the menu and made sure it was within the budget. The invitation was sent by the decoration committee, and they had also made groups for the decoration.

The leader of Time and space committee is Nandita and Moksha. They had almost done with deciding which stall will be placed where at what time.

Shree had come in the Individual time, to help everyone in their finishing touch of their drawing and editing.

Tuesday

Everyone had sent their work to Shree. Tabrez had come to LC to do some more minor editing. Rajitha had numbered everyone's work and made files in her laptop. Everyone was now busy making the decorations. Pinki was asking everyone to talk about what they did about their stall. Some of us showed it to her, she gave them suggestions, and they were good. But the others(like me) tried to ignore her and procrastinate. At the end Pinki won, and aise waise we just said something and got shouted at. The result of getting shouted at on a few was way too good(like me). But some didn’t care much so either they canceled their stall or procrastinated more.

Wednesday

By now, everyone was working on their stall decorations. Everyone had started to get irritated. There were lots of decorations to be made. The blossoms (who have now become pups) were trying to help us but for us it was seeming like another big headache. Later we let them make new decorations which were completely made by them, and Nandita, our funfair manager decided to put those decorations up too. After lunch we had our Breaking session with Sai. Those who hadn’t signed up for it worked on their stalls and helped in some of the hobby zone winding up

Thursday

On Thursday we decided we want to put a video of the song we have recorded with Limangi. Everyone is now nearly done with their stalls work. Limangi did our video recording as we worked. A few people who were completely ready with what they had to do gave their mocs to Poorva, Limangi, and a few other children. The making of all decorations was done. After lunch there was a meeting, where we decided we are not going to use the paints the next day. On the next day we would only do the sticking of the decorations, arranging of stalls, everyone's moc stalls, and that’s it. On Thursday we also got a sample copy of the result of Shree’s workshop. Looking at it, Rajitha and Tabrez worked some more to make all the projects as everyone wanted them to be.

Friday

Friday went as was planned. Till 10:30, 11 everyone made sure they were completely ready with what they were going to do with their stall. Even the Food committee had placed the order. At about 11 everyone visited each other's stall. Then we had lunch. After lunch we distributed ourselves into groups for decorating the spaces. The 4 spaces were Play zone, Quiet zone, Hobby zone, and corridor Pantry. Within one - one and a half hour, all the decorations were ready.

That's most of all about the week.

I have skipped a few parts because they are surprises for the fun fair.

To see the surprises please come to our 3rd SLC Fun Fair. We would love to see you there.:)

HOPE YOU ENJOY IT!!!!!!!

Ananya

Visitor Interaction

Dylan, who is a South Jersey Sudbury alumni, has been traveling in India for the past two months. He is 22 years old and conducts workshops for children in the US. He was learning farming at a rural village near Khopoli. He was excited to visit us, he said people in Amercia rarely know about Sudbury and to find a place like that here was “completely wild”. We spoke to him at length about how a Sudbury school functions. At their school they have only one facilitator for 25 children. But what I most wanted to know about was consequences, to my surprise they have expelled children from their school. 8 in 10 years. How do they arrive at such a decision? Isn’t this too harsh? These were our questions. He admitted that it's a very difficult situation and the committee meets many times to finally arrive at this decision. He said that it means that the child does not respect others and the community. It is only done as a last resort. Among facilitators also we have different feelings about this. Nevertheless, this conversation has put me into thinking and it reminds me of AS Neill’s essay, Freedom not license.

Hope you ponder over these thoughts too.

See you next year!